Miami-Dade voters keep pit-bull ban

Voters overwhelming opted to keep a 1989 ban on American Staffordshire terriers, Staffordshire bull terriers and high-content mixes of both.

Dahlia Canes, founder of the Miami Coalition Against Breed-Specific Legislation, the group that spearheaded the ban repeal, was disappointed but not surprised.

“We didn’t think it would pass,’’ said the 60-year-old Hialeah paralegal who founded the coalition in 2008. “This was handed to us [by the County Commission] whether we liked it or not and we had to take up the challenge. We only had a few months to reeducate an entire county that has been brainwashed for 23 years.’’

In February, a group of Miami-Dade commissioners short-circuited what appeared to be a winning effort in the state legislature to abolish the ban, calling it an attack on the county’s home rule authority.

Canes also said that putting the words “pit bull’’ and “dangerous dog’’ in the same sentence in the ballot question all but doomed the effort.